the Young Knives 'Voices Of Animals and Men'
18 August 2006
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What a long way The Young Knives have come in the past two years. On paper, they should certainly not be defined as being fashionable. Sporting NHS spectacles, ill-fitting charity shop suits and haircuts more fitting of retired World War Two pilots, The Young Knives quite frankly look odd… they live in the countryside, like gardening and stand out from their contemporaries by a country mile. Everything from the band’s music, videos, artwork and appearance encapsulates in meticulous detail the world of The Young Knives. An un-contrived sketch of Englishness so rich in detail and tapped into the zeitgeist it recalls similarly era-defining works by The Kinks and Pulp. Tales of skiving off work, coastguards and tailors, fighting with your girlfriend’s parents and committing suicide in Loughborough. (A band with something interesting to say, imagine it.)And so, with their debut album, The Young Knives continue to defy logic and carry on winning over the nation’s hearts with their unique brand of corduroy pop, classic songs and unlikely stage manner. It’s as leftfield as pop gets, but The Young knives have delivered a truly classic debut album of startling diversity that is set to surprise an awful lot of people. In addition to the band’s love of 80’s UK post-punk, the album also takes in a range of less expected (but no less profound) influences from West Coast pop to English folk. Album opener ‘Part Timer’ sets the tone with its frantic tempo, soaring harmonies and scathing refrain of “I was bored, I was bored”, whilst forthcoming August single ‘Weekends and Bleak Days (Hot Summer) and it’s ludicrously catchy chorus looks set to be as much a part of summer 2006 as water shortages and the world cup.With its haunting Moog and scissor/sewing-machine percussion, ‘Tailors’ is the kind of skewed folk Syd Barrett made to such superlative defying effect. ‘Hollow Line’ recalls the fuzzed up guitar pop of ‘Sweet Jane’-era Velvets, as imagined through provincial English cynicism. Through many twists and turns the album arrives at possible highlight ‘Loughborough Suicide’. A requiem to the dead-end humdrum of the band’s hometown: three and a half minutes of pop perfection climaxing in the ethereal mantra of ‘I will never go down, fighting’.On the cusp of mainstream success, The Young Knives are a triumph for the little man, a victory of substance over style. Despite having entitled one of their own songs ‘We Are The Also Rans’, The Young Knives seem set to defy this prophecy and then some.the Young Knives 'Voices Of Animals and Men' albumVideos you might like
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